Heard around the West

This peace symbol wreath was banned by a Pagosa Springs,
Colo., homeowners' association because some residents thought it
either politically divisive, or a pro-Satan image. After worldwide
news coverage and criticism, association board members rescinded
the ban, apologized and resigned.

Doug Large

MONTANA

The
Washington Post couldn’t resist a colorful headline
about the outcome of Montana’s tighter-than-tight race for
the U.S. Senate: "A true blue libertarian: Stan Jones,
the also-ran who changed the hue of politics." Jones, 67, is
certainly known for his ashen-blue face — the unfortunate
result of drinking a homemade medicine that contained silver
— and there is a good case that his presence on the ballot
tipped the election to "blue" Democrat Jon Tester, by pulling votes
from Republican incumbent Conrad Burns. Jones raked in just over
10,000 votes, and Tester won by a slim 2,565 margin. If Jones
hadn’t been in the race, his votes probably would have gone
to Burns, since Jones opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, in
contrast to the usual live-and-let-live libertarian agenda. Jones
may be a perennial loser in Montana politics, said the Post, but in
the last election he "recast the political complexion of the U.S.
Senate."

ARIZONA

Who said
neighborliness is dead? In Mesa, Ariz., at least 15
people offered to help a young man who was having trouble getting
his car to go. When the hapless driver then got stuck in reverse,
said Phoenix police, even more people pitched in to push the car,
and after he still couldn’t figure out how to operate a
manual transmission, passerby Margarita Wood gave up offering
advice and just climbed in the car to help. Nobody realized that
the desperate driver was actually trying to steal the car, reports
The Associated Press; in any case, the 14-year-old was too young
for a driver’s license. "It is incredible that an entire
neighborhood would participate in this comedy of errors," said
police Sgt. Dave Norton. The would-be car thief was cited and
released to the custody of his grandmother.

CALIFORNIA

Writer Rebecca Solnit
received an infuriating offer from the alumni association of the
University of California, Berkeley. For only $44,950, she
read, she and other alums were invited to tour "Vanishing Cultures:
An Epic Journey by Private Jet." Her question: "Can enlistees
congratulate themselves on helping cultures vanish; do you get to
see the Inuit with the melting tundra and drowning polar bears or
touch down on a Pacific atoll about to go underwater forever?
… The whole notion of goggling at vanishing cultures is so
offensive, as is perhaps the notion that they are vanishing rather
than adapting, as most have in the face of the worst we have been
able to come up with. To say nothing of what you might do for these
cultures, other than enjoy watching them vanish … May the
culture of ultra-high-end conspicuous consumption vanish."

NEVADA

The town council of
Pahrump, population 1,300, got a bee in its bonnet about illegal
immigration, so it passed a law making it a crime for
anyone to fly a foreign flag alone or above the U.S. flag. The
penalty for doing so is a $50 fine and 30 hours of community
service. "All of the illegal alien protesters are waving Mexican
flags, and we just got tired of it," town clerk Paul Willis told
Reuters. John Trasvina, who heads the Mexican American Legal
Defense and Educational Fund, said he thought the law was clearly
unconstitutional, but "given that Pahrump is such a small town, I
don’t think they are going to be hiring any flag police any
time soon."

NEW MEXICO

Two
policemen from Isleta Pueblo bought hamburgers from the
drive-through window at Burger King in Las Lunas, N.M.,
but noticed after eating half their meal that marijuana flavored
the meat. "It gives a whole new meaning to the word
‘Whopper,’ " attorney Sam Bregman told the AP. Three
Burger King employees were indicted for serving up the spiked
burgers; the officers are now suing the corporation for damages.
And talk about tainted food: a Santa Fe couple recently ate part of
a loaf of rustic Italian bread from the high-end Whole Foods market
before discovering that an exploded AA battery had been baked in
with the bread. The store’s bakery manager had a likely
explanation: On the day the bread was baked, a clock fell off the
wall and into the bread mixer, reports The New
Mexican. The clock has been removed.

THE NATION

Is the Forest Service
bipolar? In mid-November, the agency announced that its
budget was so tight it had to analyze all its recreational
facilities and close perhaps hundreds of its 15,000 campgrounds and
developed trailheads, most of which are in the West. The Forest
Service explained that firefighting was chewing up some 42 percent
of its budget, and the backlog in maintenance was only growing
bigger. Yet only a few weeks later, reports USA Today, the very
same Forest Service will introduce a pilot program in January
called "More Kids in the Woods," part of a federal back-to-nature
movement for young people. The kids better head for national
forests in campers that include bathrooms.

Betsy Marston is editor of Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News in Paonia,
Colorado. Tips of Western oddities are always appreciated and often
shared in the column, Heard around the
West.